Scripture: Exodus 31: 1-11; Exodus 35: 30 – 36: 7
Sermon: The Spirituality of Work
Topics: Labor, Creation, Tabernacle
Preached: October 14, 2007 pm
Rev. Mike Abma
EXODUS 31:1-11
The Lord spoke to Moses: 2See, I have called by name Bezalel son of Uri son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah: 3and I have filled him with divine spirit, with ability, intelligence, and knowledge in every kind of craft, 4to devise artistic designs, to work in gold, silver, and bronze, 5in cutting stones for setting, and in carving wood, in every kind of craft.6Moreover, I have appointed with him Oholiab son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan; and I have given skill to all the skilful, so that they may make all that I have commanded you: 7the tent of meeting, and the ark of the covenant, and the mercy-seat that is on it, and all the furnishings of the tent, 8the table and its utensils, and the pure lampstand with all its utensils, and the altar of incense, 9and the altar of burnt-offering with all its utensils, and the basin with its stand, 10and the finely worked vestments, the holy vestments for the priest Aaron and the vestments of his sons, for their service as priests, 11and the anointing-oil and the fragrant incense for the holy place. They shall do just as I have commanded you.
Exodus 35:30 – 36:1
Then Moses said to the Israelites: See, the Lord has called by name Bezalel son of Uri son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah; 31he has filled him with divine spirit, with skill, intelligence, and knowledge in every kind of craft, 32to devise artistic designs, to work in gold, silver, and bronze, 33in cutting stones for setting, and in carving wood, in every kind of craft.34And he has inspired him to teach, both him and Oholiab son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan. 35He has filled them with skill to do every kind of work done by an artisan or by a designer or by an embroiderer in blue, purple, and crimson yarns, and in fine linen, or by a weaver—by any sort of artisan or skilled designer.
36Bezalel and Oholiab and everyone skilful to whom the Lord has given skill and understanding to know how to do any work in the construction of the sanctuary shall work in accordance with all that the Lord has commanded.
2 Moses then called Bezalel and Oholiab and everyone skilful to whom the Lord had given skill, everyone whose heart was stirred to come to do the work; 3and they received from Moses all the freewill-offerings that the Israelites had brought for doing the work on the sanctuary. They still kept bringing him freewill-offerings every morning, 4so that all the artisans who were doing every sort of task on the sanctuary came, each from the task being performed, 5and said to Moses, ‘The people are bringing much more than enough for doing the work that the Lord has commanded us to do.’ 6So Moses gave command, and word was proclaimed throughout the camp: ‘No man or woman is to make anything else as an offering for the sanctuary.’ So the people were restrained from bringing; 7for what they had already brought was more than enough to do all the work.
This is the Word of the Lord
Thanks be to God
INTRODUCTION the Book of Exodus
The book of Exodus is a wonderful book.
It is all about the birth of a nation.
It is all about Israel being rescued from slavery in Egypt,
about being led by Moses through the Red Sea,
and about Israel finding themselves at the foot of Mount Sinai.
But once at Mount Sinai, our knowledge of the book of Exodus gets a little sketchy.
That is probably because most of the end of the book of Exodus is all about the building of the Tabernacle.
First there are detailed instructions regarding how the Tabernacle was to be built (25-28)
Ark of the Covenant
Table for the Bread of the Presence
The Lampstand
The Tabernacle
The Framework
The Curtain
The Altar for the Burnt Offering
The Court
Oil for the Lamp
Vestments for the Priests
Ordination of Priests –
Offerings and Incense and Oil and Bronze Basin
Then, from chapter 36-39 there is a detailed description about the actual building of the various part of the Tabernacle:
Construction of the Tabernacle
Making of the Ark
Making of table for the Bread of the Presence
Making the Lampstand
Making the Altar of Incense
Making the Anointing Oil and Incense
Making the altar of burnts offering
Making the court of the Tabernacle
Making the vestments of the Priesthood
We can’t absorb all these details tonight.
What I would like to focus on are the passages from 31: 1-11 and 35:30-36:7.
These are the passages that
first select Bezalel and Oholiab to supervise the work of building the
Tabernacle;
And then Bezalel and Oholiab went about doing the work they were
given.
What is extremely captivating about these passages is the Bezalel and Oholiab are the first persons in the Bible described as being filled with the
Holy Spirit.
These aren’t the priests. These aren’t even the Levites.
No, these were blue collar workers, skilled laborers, who receive this description of being filled with the Holy Spirit.
TABERNACLE AND CREATION
To understand what Bezalel and Oholiab are doing in this text, and to appreciate why they are mentioned not only once but twice, we need to begin to understand why the book of Exodus spends so much time giving us the details of the Tabernacle in the first place.
First of all, what happens with the Tabernacle is in CONTRAST to what had happened in Egypt.
In Egypt the Israelites were forced to work as slaves.
With the Tabernacle, they willingly work as Spirit-filled craftsmen.
But the building of the Tabernacle was much bigger and deeper than that.
The building of the Tabernacle has PARALLELS to the story of Creation.
Let me point out some of those Tabernacle/Creation parallels:
1. In Creation, the Spirit hovered over creation.
With the Tabernacle, we see the Spirit hoveriing over Bezelal and Oholiab
and the other workers on the Tabernacle.
2. In Creation, God brought order and life out of darkness and chaos.
The Tabernacle was the center, the heart of the Israelite nation as it traveled through the wilderness.
It embodied life and order in the midst of the chaos and darkness of
the wilderness.
3. In Creation, there are 7 days.
In the book of Exodus, when God is giving instructions regarding how
to build the Tabernacle, he speaks 7 times.
4. In Creation, the 7th day is a day of rest.
In the instructions to build the Tabernacle, the 7th time God speaks is
the time he instructs Israel to keep the Sabbath.
5. In the Creation story, at various times, God looks over his work
and saw that it was good.
In the building of the Tabernacle story, Moses looks over the work a
number of times, and each time saw that the work had been done just
as the Lord had commanded.
So, why the many parallels between the story of Creation in Genesis
and the story of the building of the Tabernacle in Exodus?
I think it is because the Tabernacle represented the heart of what God was beginning to do.
God wanted to bring his Creation back to what it was intended to be.
It was intended to be a place where God could live in the middle of his people.
In Exodus, God has chosen to live in the middle of this nation, Israel.
The Tabernacle, the place in which God would take up residence with his people,
was meant to be a microcosm of Creation.
It was meant to be the seed of a New Creation.
It was meant to represent God planting a colony of his kingdom in the
middle of nowhere, kept alive and well by the faithfulness of
God and the faithfulness of his people.
Bezalel, Oholiab, and all the other workers on the Tabernacle
were involved in this grand enterprise of putting together
this seed of the New Creation.
With their hands, with their skill,
with their ability to fashion things of both beauty and function,
they were part of this holy work.
Before a lamb was sacrificed, before a bull was offered,
these skilled laborers offered the work of their hands
as a holy offering to the Lord.
THE SPIRITUALITY OF OUR WORK
We know that this enterprise did not work perfectly.
Israel rebelled and resisted God’s efforts to make things new.
So God came to dwell among us in a new and startling way.
He came in the flesh, in Jesus, the Christ, to tabernacle among us.
Then he offered his own life as a sacrifice, a ransom for many.
Through his death and resurrection, he fought back death to bring life,
He endured chaos, to make plain the way of new kingdom order.
He is now the firstborn of the dead,
yhe first-fruits of the new creation.
When we are united with Jesus Christ,
when the Holy Spirit not only hovers over us but lives within us,
we become part of that new creation.
We live and move and have our being through Christ our Lord.
In Jesus Christ we become children of God.
We become his sons and daughters.
As such, we join in the work of the “Family Business.”
That work is in bringing the New Creation in whatever way we can.
That is why the work we do,
whatever that work is,
is in the same spirit as the work of Bezalel and Oholiab.
It is work for the new creation.
It is work offered to God to the glory of God.
EUGENE PETERSON
Last Sunday morning I mentioned how Eugene Peterson spent much of his youth in his father’s butcher shop.
He ground hamburger, he carved pork loins, he served customers,
in his father’s butcher shop in Montana.
For many years after that, he writes that he was looking for a more “spiritual” life. It took him a long time to realize that what he did back in that butcher shop was a deeply “spiritual” life. In fact, Peterson writes that the spirituality he learned in that butcher shop is what he spent the rest of his life working out.[1]
Peterson writes that he loves the story he once read about St Theresa of Avila.
Apparently St Theresa had been working out in the garden of the convent she lived.
After working she came in and there was roast chicken for supper.
St. Theresa attacked that chicken with gusto.
She was biting into it, gnawing at it – there was nothing dainty about how she was eating that chicken.
The other nuns noticed.
They raised their eyebrows and gasped, “St. Theresa?”
“What” replied Theresa,
“When I work, I work,
When I rest, I rest,
When I pray, I pray,
And when I eat …..I eat. And I do it all to the glory of God.”
The delightful thing about that story is the gusto we are encouraged to bring
to living our life for the kingdom.
Whether the work we do gets our hands dirty,
Or gets our hands extremely skilled at a particular task
or tender and gentle for a particular cure,
the spirituality of our work is that it is all about doing
what God is already busy doing in this world.
It is about generously offering to help in the Family Business of bringing
about the New Creation,
In all its beauty,
In all its order,
In all its peace.
Amen
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This is all recounted in Eugene Peterson’s memoir entitled, The Pastor. ↑
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